How HVAC Companies Can Reduce Their Field Service Cost

While a business focuses on making money, it must not ignore the areas where it can also save money by reducing costs. Businesses like HVAC can do considerable saving by reducing the cost of their field services.

Specialized field service management software for HVAC companies provide great workforce management and customer service without having to spend a lot of money. Given below is the list of areas, where HVAC companies can benefit from using a field service management software both from cost-effectiveness perspective as well as functionality perspective.

Data Entry

All the field data such as signatures, invoices, service details, etc. are mostly collected by field agents on paper, which they submit to the back office. Then, there is a middle man who transcribes and enters all the data in the computer. It is like double doing the same work. Isn't it a waste of time, resources and need not mention the cost that goes into paying someone to enter all of the data.

Field service software for HVAC companies, allows the field technicians to directly enter the field data into the enterprise centralized database using their smart devices right from the job site.

It is nothing like overburdening them, as they do only what they were already doing, just that instead of collecting the data on papers they are collecting it digitally. So, it cuts down the cost of data entry middleman and other related costs. Another benefit  is that the data gets uploaded on real-time and anyone can access it from anywhere.

Save on Fuel/gas and Travelling Costing

Fuel/gas and travelling costs are high for HVAC companies. With the aid of HVAC scheduling software, job-scheduling and technician-dispatching can be done in a smarter way and this gives a huge scope to cut down on fuel/gas and travel costs. For instance, if there is a service request from x location and the job is randomly assigned to technician A who is 15 kilometres away from the location, while technician B is available right there at a proximity of 5 kilometres, then won't it be an unnecessary bearing of travelling costing.

This happens because of the lack of visibility. But the field service software provides the desired visibility by showing the live locations of all the field agents. Thus, a job can be assigned to the nearest available technician so that he can reach a spot with minimal travelling. Also, through route mapping the optimal route to the job sites can be shared with the technician, so that technician can easily go from Customer A to Customer B without taking detours and thus can reduce the travel time and fuel/gas expenses.

This also keeps the customers happy and satisfied as their service requests get attended promptly.

Increase First-Time Fix Rates

According to a research conducted by the Aberdeen Group, the average cost per dispatch is $250. So, if a service request doesn't get resolved in one visit then it massively adds on to the expenses of the companies.

Here, HVAC estimating app can help by letting the technician know if their service vans are stocked with necessary tools and parts.

Also, the real-time accesses to the enterprise database keep the technician handy with necessary information such as service history, customer details, troubleshooting tutorials, service quotations, etc. Thus, the technician can reach the job-site being fully equipped to render the service effectively, so that second-visits can be avoided.

Conclusion

Above-mentioned three scenarios are relevant to any HVAC company, whether small size, medium-size or big-size. Companies must invest their money on areas that lead to expansion. Spending money by doing things traditionally instead of investing in advanced technology such as a field service management software for HVAC companies is not wise. The software could be an all-in-one solution that helps in keeping costs down while making customers happy.